Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ultrasound diagnostic imaging apparatus.
Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there is known an ultrasound diagnostic imaging apparatus which is able to execute two modes where the modes are a single display mode in which one ultrasound image is displayed in an ultrasound image display region on a display screen of a display unit and a dual screen display mode in which the ultrasound image display region is divided in half vertically or horizontally, and two ultrasound images are displayed, one in each display region (for example, the above is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-276062).
When image adjustment, measurement, etc. are performed on the ultrasound image displayed in each display region in the dual screen display mode, it is useful to be able to perform the above operation for each display region. Therefore, it is necessary to switch by the user operation the display region (active) on which the image adjustment, measurement, etc. is performed.
Such various operation of conventional ultrasound diagnostic imaging apparatuses is performed by physically operating a user interface such as keys, trackball, rotary encoder and the like provided on an operation table (for example, Japanese Patent No. 4429635).
When the switch between the single display mode and the dual screen display mode or the image adjustment, measurement, etc. of the ultrasound image displayed in each display region of the dual screen display mode is performed using the physically operated user interface as shown in Japanese Patent No. 4429635, at least three keys are necessary to switch between the modes and to switch between the display regions in the dual screen display mode. However, the following problems occur when the ultrasound diagnostic imaging apparatus which is able to execute the dual screen display mode where the display region is divided between an upper display region and a lower display region, and the dual screen display mode where the display region is divided between a left display region and a right display region is configured to be operated by only three keys (for example, mode switching key: one, display region switching key: two). For example, when the active display region is switched in the dual screen display mode where the display region is divided between the upper display region and the lower display region, the keys positioned aligned in a left and right layout need to be operated, and operation cannot be done intuitively. In order to execute intuitive operation in such case, it is necessary to add the display region switching key for switching between upper and lower regions and many keys become necessary. As a result, space for positioning these keys are necessary on the operation table, and the size of the apparatus increases.